THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST by J. Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 28, 1879

THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST.

By J. Clarke

“Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Rom. 8:9.

Such is the spirit of the present age, that self-deception is peculiarly prominent. A public profession of religion can be maintained, without the least idea of what real Christianity is, because it is customary.

Romanism has paved the way for a mere formal religion, and has had more than ten centuries to make her impress upon the human mind as to what constitutes a Christian life and character; and she has well improved her time; and Protestantism, although many degrees better than the papacy, is still quite too much after the same pattern.

So long as Rome persecuted the Protestants, there was a life in Protestantism; but as soon as this ceased, Protestants began to lose their vigor. Good men, like Wesley and Tennent and Whitfield, did much to stem the tide of secularism; but such men are now too few, and Protestantism is fast ebbing back to the lifeless dead forms of Romanism.

Church dignitaries will find, that to revive old pagan and Roman errors, such as the Sunday of the pagans and the grand weekly holiday of Rome, will not propitiate the favor of God, nor will it bring life to the church; but rather will it strengthen Rome, and sink the world deeper in the mire.

What was it that gave life to the reformers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? was it not their study of the word of God, and their opposition to human traditions, where these conflicted with the word of God? What will give life to the church at this time? Some principle of reform that God indicates by his word and his providence is needed to call together the flock scattered abroad in this cloudy and dark period of the church.

Luther and Melancthon and Wycliffe and Latimer, and a host of worthies, worked to this object, the purification of the church; but it was reform! reform! it was not a going back to tradition from the word of God, but it was the word of God against human tradition. God owned this work, and the reformers shared largely of his Spirit.

Monmouth, a good and wealthy merchant of London, was a good example of the spirit which actuated the reformers of that time. When Tyndale was translating the Bible, and was driven out by the papal priests, Monmouth took him in; and when Tyndale was driven from this city, Monmouth and others gave him means to continue his work in other places.

Monmouth kept a hospitable table and house, and more than one Romanist was made welcome. Once when this noble man was conversing at his table, he made a remark concerning the papacy which offended a papist who was a guest. He immediately left the house in anger, threatening never to partake again of the merchant’s bounty, or to borrow his money, or ask a favor of him again. Monmouth sought an interview, all in vain. The papist would not speak to, nor look at, his Protestant friend. Finally Monmouth met him in a street so narrow that the papist could not avoid him, and spoke so kindly to him that the papist went and confessed his error in being offended. Such was the spirit that actuated the early reformers; it was the spirit of Christ. What a good time some would have had in telling in a private way how ridiculously the papist had conducted himself; but not so with the good London merchant. See D’Aubigne, vol. 5, pp. 232, 233; also the conversion of Hugh Latimer, and the zeal and love of Thomas Bilney, vol. 5, pp. 243, 244.

A work of reform must be attended with the love of God; it must originate, continue, and end with the Spirit of Christ, if it is God’s work; but he who opposes a true reform, actuated by the Spirit of God, makes a great and a fatal mistake, if persisted in to the end.

John preached reform, and Christ took up the work as it was left by John. The Jews opposed. So now, just as time is about to close, and the second coming is at hand, reforms will be preached in truth and love. Some will hear, while some like the Jews will oppose. Reader where will we be found? J. CLARKE.